


The Next World

by Jenthewarrior



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-18 13:23:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21711451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenthewarrior/pseuds/Jenthewarrior
Summary: Follow the stories of Rick, Carol, Daryl, Michonne, Negan, and others as they try to come to terms with the new world, and find their place within it. Heroes and villains emerge as groups collide and resources dwindle. Some succumb to darkness, and others find their way back from it. Future Daryl/Carol.
Relationships: Daryl Dixon/Carol Peletier
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	1. World on Fire

A/N: Hello and welcome to my Walking Dead story. I enjoy the focus on characters in this show and I also wondered what would happen if things had been different from the very start. In this version, Rick is not shot and not in a coma when the walkers appear. Other, small things have changed. I have also decided to explore other characters who were not in the original seasons, but showed up later, like Negan. I will also include several ‘highlight’ chapters that focus on pivotal moments in the lives of minor characters, like Lizzie and Mika, Tyreese and Sasha, Morgan and Duane, and Phillip Blake (the Governor).

Of course, many of these characters will begin the story in different places, trying to find their way and protect the people they love, but they will collide eventually. I try to write characters as true to the source material as possible.

I hope you enjoy this story and if you like it, please leave a review. If you want to suggest future canonical changes, or request certain events happen as they did in the show/comics, or you want to suggest a ‘highlight’ moment that you think should be featured, then feel free to leave that in a review as well. I can’t always give everyone what they want, but I want to try to give people their favorite moments as well.

I have rated this story T for violence and language. If you watch the Walking Dead, you should be okay to read this story.

Jenthewarrior.

XxX

Chapter 1.  
World on Fire.

“The emergency broadcast system for the state of Georgia has been activated. This is not a test.”

It was nearing midnight and the highway was at a standstill. Rick Grimes sat with his hands on the wheel, looking down a dark line of vehicles.

“Proceed to the nearest refugee center in a calm and organized fashion. If you are unable to leave your home, stay indoors, turn off all lights, and stay quiet.”

He was still in his police uniform, bloodstained across the waist, a pistol resting in his lap.

“Help is on the way.”

Rick watched the road, aware of the silence, uncomfortable with the darkness. Some people had left their cars and started walking, shadows passing through the remaining headlights, and as the night wore on, one engine after another cut off. Slowly, slowly, the highway quieted, until the only sounds were whispers, people breathing, and that broadcast echoing through the cars.

He had been hoping the message would change for hours, give them more instructions. But the only thing that changed from daylight to dark was the list of counties at the end, the list of refugee centers. It got shorter and shorter with no explanation.

While the last list was winding down, Lori spoke from the back seat, “Rick… Cobb and Cherokee…?” Her voice was high, strained, and there was a look in her eyes like a wild animal looking for a way out. Her parents lived in Cherokee, and her cousins in Cobb.

Rick turned and took her hand. She had their son wrapped under her arm.

“Maybe they’re full up, huh?”

She wanted to believe him. He could tell. But she didn’t. She squeezed his hand and looked away, taking a halting breath, “Yeah. Maybe.”

Shane returned and leaned in through Rick’s window. His eyes were as dark as anything at this hour. “Nobody up there knows a damn thing – bunch of stories about UFOs and terrorist attacks. I’m gonna head back the other way, see what I can see. You wanna come?”

“You go. I think we’ll hang around here.”

Shane tipped his hat and disappeared again.

A few seconds dragged past, and then Lori said, “We could use a little fresh air.”

Carl added, “I have to pee.”

Rick was reluctant to leave the car, and that discontent only grew as they walked around to the trunk. It was still so quiet, despite how many people were around. Rick scanned the gathered faces, the cars, both sides of the road, looking for any signs of danger. He was as tense as he had ever been, sitting right on the edge of panic.

He took Carl by the hand and led him down into the woods, staying close while he did his business. He tried his phone again, just to have something to do with his hands.

“Still nothing?” Carl asked.

“Nothing,” Rick responded. Even the lines at the police department had been down most of the day, forcing them to use radios to communicate that morning.

Carl took his hand, pointing, “Do you see those people?”

He saw them. It was a large group hovering on the other side of the patch of trees, illuminated by something. “I see ‘em. Probably trying to see what’s the hold up, just like us.”

“Should we go over there? Maybe they know something. Maybe they have a phone.”

Rick would usually walk confidently into a crowd of strangers, but now he hesitated. It was something in the air, something in his heart. He had witnessed brutal stuff back home – neighbors falling ill, dying, and getting up to walk again. He had seen the walkers, as Shane called them, bite into the neck of one of his closest friends, shredding him like a wild animal.

So, he drew his son closer, and murmured, “Not just now,” as they headed back to the road.

Lori was chatting with the family from the car beside theirs. She wrapped her arms around Carl the moment he was close enough, like she was afraid he was just going to disappear into the darkness. Rick felt the same way. He hovered near them while she made the introductions.

“Rick, this is Carol, Ed, and Sophia.”

Ed was a heavy man with a bulldog face, his wife was rather thin, with short grayish hair, and their daughter was all knees and elbows, appearing pale and frightened.

Rick nodded his greeting, “Pleasure.”

Ed was chewing tobacco, “You got any idea what this is all about? People been talkin’ ‘bout some crazy shit out here.”

He knew what those people might be saying. He had heard it all, thought it all, himself. And though he had had the day to come to terms with it, he still couldn’t properly put it into words. “No more than you, probably. Some kind of virus, makin’ people sick, makin’ ‘em crazy. Seen a few casualties myself.”

Carol was looking down at the dry bloodstain across his waist. “Did you see…?” She reminded him of a mouse, afraid to make too much noise.

“What was that?” Rick prompted gently.

“We came by way of Alamance,” she went on quietly, “Lori said you were from King County… my parents live there. Bobby and Sara Wilson. I was just wondering if you maybe knew of them, or if you knew anything…”

“We evacuated this morning,” he said. “But the whole county was under order to take the highway to Atlanta, so I’m sure they’re on the road somewhere.”

Carol smiled in a way that showed she couldn’t believe him. “Is it bad out there?”

He glanced at his son, who was focused intently on him, and then said, “I’m sure they got the warning on the radio, same as us, and locked up the house. Lots of people did.”

Ed grunted, exiting the conversation without so much as a goodbye. He strolled around their car and started toying with the radio, grumbling something unintelligible.

Carol smiled apologetically. “Sorry.”

“No problem. None at all.”

Shane made his way back up the line of cars, shaking his head as he made it to them. “Seems like traffic goes back more than a mile.” He nodded to Carol and Sophia. “Ladies.”

“We can’t stay here all night,” Lori said, clutching Carl a little tighter.

“We have some food, if you guys are hungry,” Carol offered.

Something thumped inside the car, and Carol flinched. She cleared her throat. “Sorry. I mean, we might have run out. I should check. Sophia, baby, stay here.”

Carl was watching the little girl. He held out his hand. “I’m Carl.”

Sophia looked doubtfully at him.

“Leave her be,” Rick chided. “You’re welcome to sit here with Lori and Carl as long as you want,” he said to the girl, who must have been around Carl’s age.

It seemed that the night went on forever. Rick and Shane tried to get their phones working, but they had as much luck as all the other people around them. Rick tried to modify the radio to pick up other local stations, but it stubbornly kept on with the broadcast. Every half hour or so, it was updated, and more counties were taken off the list.

And then, at two in the morning, the broadcast stopped.

Rick was talking to Shane in the front while the kids colored in the trunk, and Carol and Lori were talking with some people from the surrounding vehicles. Everyone became aware of the silence at once. Rick fiddled with the dial, trying to get it to come back.

He felt his heart beating in his throat.

“I don’t like that,” Shane commented.

“What happened? Why’d it stop?” Lori leaned into his window.

“Maybe the tower shut down, to preserve energy or something,” Shane offered.

“Maybe,” Rick agreed.

He rested his finger on the dial.

And then he saw movement on the road. He and Shane stepped out to watch a mother and father lead four kids down the divider, their legs illuminated by the few headlights that were still on.

Shane tried to call out to them, to warn them to get back to their vehicle, but the father only glanced back at them and kept going. Shane cursed to himself. “Not safe out there. For all he knows, he could be leading his family into more danger. Stupid.”

Carl appeared behind Rick, putting a small hand on his back, “I’m hungry.”

It was strange. It was the first time in his life that Rick could not just go get his son some food. It suddenly occurred to him that they were trapped out here, with miles of highway either way, and dark woods on the borders. In their haste to leave home they had hardly packed anything, expecting to be at some shelter by now. He had his first thought that they might have to leave their car.

Lori seemed to be thinking the same thing. She was looking at him with this sudden, frightened expression. She drew Carl back and put her arm around his chest.

“I was thinking about the albums… I’m sorry, baby, I didn’t even think…”

Rick crouched down and took his son’s hands, “Me and Shane are gonna go on through the woods, see if we can get any news. You all just stay put here. If I find anything to eat, I’ll bring it back for you kids. Sophia still back there?”

Her head popped up over the back seat. She had been listening from the trunk.

“Candy,” Carl specified. “If you find any vegetables, just leave them there.”

“Right. Right. Of course.” Rick smiled, ruffling his son’s hair, and then stood to talk to Lori. “Take out a picture – your favorite one, the one you wanna keep the most – and put it in your pocket. We might have to leave all this behind.”

She nodded, though that frightened look grew to terror. “Not in the middle of the night, right?”

“Might have to be. Keep him close.”

Lori clutched their son. “Stay safe.”

“You too. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Rick and Shane ventured into the woods together. Shane was scratching his head. He waited until they were out of earshot of the highway to speak, “Emergency broadcast cutting off in the middle like that… cars back for miles… people walking up the road… It all spells trouble.”

“Yeah, I got that, too.”

“You know, I seen natural disasters and stuff on the news, people evacuating. Terrorist attacks and burning buildings and all that. But this feels different. I mean, what’re we supposed to do? Locked up in this mess?”

It was a short walk, not even ten minutes. Rick came out on the side of another road and found a good view down the hill – into the city. Atlanta towered in the distance.

It was a city in shadow. Where there would usually be businesses, hotels, and tall towers lit up against the night sky, there were only dark blurs, and darker blurs. Where the roads would usually be illuminated by headlights, like so many lines with bright dots marching along them, there was only blackness. If he had not known there was a city there, Rick might have missed it.

“Never seen it that dark,” Shane breathed.

“Must be some kind of blackout. I bet that’s why the broadcast stopped.”

Shane whispered, “You been quiet all day. What do you think this is?” Others had gathered to view the city, spurred from their cars by the end of the broadcast, murmuring amongst themselves. “Seems like more than a virus. Seems like more than what we saw back home.”

Rick said nothing. It might have been exactly what they saw back home, on a larger scale. It was not a terrorist attack, or a natural disaster, or anything they had seen before. It was people falling ill, people dying, and then people getting up and walking around after death. It was a sickness, making them turn on their friends and loved ones. And this place had more people than back home.

He hated the thought, so he tried again for the brighter side. “Maybe it was just a blackout. You know they got an army of police out there… first responders… fire departments.”

Shane was silent, his arms crossed tightly, frowning down at the city.

“We should ask around, see what everybody knows.”

Suddenly the silence was broken.

Helicopters came thrashing overhead. Rick and Shane ducked as the wind threatened to bowl them over. Rick hit his knees, and the crowd on the hilltop let out a collective gasp.

He sat there, watching, as the helicopters flew high over the city and dropped dozens of little black specs over the streets. As they hit the ground, so many seeds nestling into a massive field, they detonated. Fire rose like a great curtain, blinding them, illuminating the night. It boomed and crackled, a firework show, waves of sound and heat washing over the audience, along with the sick smell of smoke.

Rick had never seen anything like it.

Never.

It made him sick to his stomach, made his heart stutter and gallop. He thought of all the people down there, all the lives that had just been snuffed out. He wanted to speak but fumbled over his words and just rambled like a madman.

Atlanta was no more.

How could anyone survive that?

Shane took his hat off and held it to his chest, breathing, “Jesus…” His eyes shone in the new light, glistening with tears. Rick put his hand on him and felt him trembling.

But his mind came back, and the fog cleared. People on the hilltop were screaming and someone was tumbling downward into the grass. Atlanta burned and gave them light, gave them shadows, showed them an invasion of lurking and lunging.

And that sound, that terrible groaning sound.

“Run!” He vaulted to his feet, grabbing Shane. He screamed so loud that his voice broke. “Run! Back to the road!”

Everyone scattered. People tripped over branches, over leaves, over each other. Bones crunched, and blood sprayed, a sick orange paint in the firelight. Rick saw it in snippets, in cuts, running with a single-minded purpose. Shane was hot on his heels, shouting something.

A woman screamed her last, bloodcurdling scream and Rick skidded to a stop.

Shane crashed into him, shoved him – hard – and yelled, “We have to go! GO!”

It was murder, but he kept running.

Someone tripped in front of them and Rick tumbled over him, doing a flip into a log. He was only on the ground for a moment before Shane was on him, pulling him up, shouting now in a voice that kept breaking. Rick tried to look back, to reach out for the person he had fallen over, but the woods were too dark, and Shane was still dragging him onward.

Finally, the trees broke onto the highway.

Engines were revving, headlights were blaring, and cars were slamming into one another with sickening crunches in a desperate attempt to break free of the gridlock. Smoke rose, and fires sparked to life. Someone hit the divider and flipped onto the other side, crushing a fleeing family.

Rick made it to their car.

One of those things – a walker – was clawing at the glass and groaning. Rick responded viscerally to the sight, banging on the window on the other side and shouting, “Lori! Lori!”

He had a moment, in his own head, to whisper, Please, please, please…

And then she was there. The door flew open and she shoved Carl into his arms. He dragged her out after, clutching her for a split second with their son between them.

He had never felt wilder, more animal-like, than he did in that moment. He herded his family behind him and drew his gun, pointing it at the monster limping around their car. It was coming for them, coming to bite into them like that deputy at the station. It already had fresh blood on its face – already had a victim under its belt.

“Stay back!” Rick warned, shooting the attacker first in the chest, and then in the shoulder. It staggered but walked on. He shot again, at the legs, but it barely noticed his efforts. His son was screaming, clinging to his waist, and Lori had an iron grip on his shoulder.

Rick aimed for its head, his finger on the trigger, “Final warning! Stop!”

He fired, hitting it square in the forehead. Its skull exploded backward, and it hit the pavement with a sickening crunch, completely and utterly still. Rick was trembling from head to toe as he holstered his weapon. He could not pry Carl off of his back, so he just twisted and embraced them that way, holding on too tight, trying to hold himself together.

“Are you okay? Are you hurt? Did he touch you? Did he touch you?”

Carl was talking, screaming, crying, and Lori tried to answer but her voice was drowned out in the chaos. She ended up shaking her head furiously.

Shane was loud enough to be heard. He appeared behind them, one hand each on Rick and Lori. “We have to get off the highway! We’re sitting ducks out here! They’re everywhere!”

Rick finally ripped his son off of him, freeing himself. He turned Carl into his mother and shouted, “You do not let him go! You hold onto him! Hold onto him!” And then he turned and searched desperately for some safe place.

He saw fires burning, people running, walkers lurching across headlight beams.

“There!” Shane pointed to the other end of the highway, across four lanes of chaos, where another dark forest awaited them. “Away from the city! Away from the cars!”

“It’s too far!” Lori cried.

“Dad! Sophia!” Carl screamed.

His son was pinching his arm, near to drawing blood. Rick turned to their neighbor car, where two walkers were pawing at the windows and the family was screaming inside.

Rick could not run, like he had in the woods.

“You go!” he said to Shane, “You take them! I’ll get them out!”

“No!” Lori shouted, reaching out for Rick. He dodged the touch, and Shane practically had to drag her away. She was shouting all the way to the divider. “Rick! Rick!”

Rick drew his gun again. Her shouting had attracted the walkers from the car, and now they noticed him standing there. One of them had a broken leg, and it dragged it along the asphalt, like it felt no pain. Rick led them in a circle around the car, trying to find any other solution than the one he had discovered before. These are people, he told himself. Sick people. People.

But there was no other way. He could not stop them, he could not detain them, and more would certainly be on the way. His family was out there somewhere and there was no time for a peaceful solution. It was time for action.

Rick aimed for the head, taking them both down in quick succession.

He banged on the doors, “Come on! Get out! Come on!”

Ed was out first, wielding a bloody baseball bat. He had been the one to break that leg. His eyes were wild and bloodshot. He was off instantly, sprinting toward the woods, before his family had left the car. Rick helped Carol out, but he had to peel the terrified little girl from her seat. She clutched a doll and sobbed loudly in his arms.

Carol searched around frantically, “Where did he go? Ed! Ed!”

“Shh,” Rick snapped, bundling Sophia against him and grabbing her mother by the hand. “Come with me. Come with me.”

His heart raced as they made their run. He dodged between cars, stopping sometimes, breathless, to let the walkers amble past. He turned a blind eye to screaming people, people who were desperate for help, locked in their vehicles. He set his mind on a single path again and followed it.

In the woods, the noises and lights were dimmed. He set the girl down and she locked around her mother. Carol was looking back at the cars, the firelight reflected in her glassy eyes. “Oh, Ed,” she murmured. Her eyes turned to him at last, shocked and afraid. “Where do we go?”

“Come with me,” he said again, taking her hand.

He wove through the trees, keeping as quiet as he could, and kept hissing their names.

“Shane? Lori! Carl!”

Minutes passed, and the only sounds were the leaves rustling underfoot. Sometimes they heard other feet rustling around, but there was no response to his calls. He kept his gun out.

It took ten minutes before a response came from a patch of trees.

“Rick?”

Rick followed his voice, tripping over a few roots before he discovered them hiding behind a hefty oak tree. Lori was on him immediately. He hugged her like he had not seen her in five years, not just a few minutes. Carol was whispering to Shane, “Did you see Ed come by here?”

“I did. Couldn’t miss him,” Shane said. “We’ll find him, don’t worry.”

Rick peeled Lori off of him, “I have to go back. Those people need help.”

“We need you,” Lori insisted.

“Don’t leave!” Carl whined.

Rick felt his heart split in two. It was his duty, his calling in life, to protect others. But if he left his family here, there was no telling what might happen to them. He had to shut out the screaming, shut down that side of himself, and run.

So, they ran.

Shane took the front, and Rick followed at the back. Both had their guns drawn. Rick did his best to keep everyone in line, but they kept crashing into other fleeing groups. Somehow, they picked up a few extra members, until there were eight of them running together instead of six. Shane kept them moving, kept crisscrossing through the woods, until the forest became quiet again.

He stopped in a clearing dominated by a large boulder, and everyone doubled over to try and catch their breath. Lori and Carol clung to their children. Rick and Shane held their guns ready, slowly circling the clearing, staring into the woods. For now, the only light came from the dim moon above, and the cellphones they pointed fearfully at the trees.

“Jesus,” Shane said. “Jesus… Jesus…”

Rick made a note of the new faces that had appeared. Ed was not among them. He holstered his gun for a moment and approached the trembling people, his hand out. “I’m Rick.”

“Jacqui,” a woman said, shaking his hand.

“Dale,” a man responded. “You got another one of those guns?”

“Sorry, just this one.”

“You didn’t happen to see two young women out there on the highway, did you? I was traveling with two girls, blonde, blue eyes.” Dale looked around hopefully, and then seemed sort of dejected. “We got separated when all this started.”

Rick had no comforting words for him. “Everybody okay? Is anybody injured?”

He got some nods, some muted stares. Carol drifted toward him.

“I have to find Ed,” she said again.

Something rustled in the woods.

Rick and Shane directed the group into a huddle, and they waited at the front, guns ready. Rick’s heart was beating at a hundred miles an hour, sweat rolling down his face.

But it was just a boy. He stumbled out of the trees, tripped on a root, and fell face-first at their feet, gasping for air. He put his hands up when he saw the guns. “Don’t shoot! Please! I’m sorry!”

Rick looked at Shane and holstered his gun.

Shane asked, “You runnin’ from something?”

“W-What?” the boy stammered.

“Is something chasing you?” Shane clarified, his gun still raised toward the trees.

“N-No,” the boy answered. “Just running. Just running.”

Rick helped him up. “Easy. Just breathe.”

He began talking, stammering, words gushing out of him, “I-I-I-I was on the road, and there was just… just… just no warning.” He cupped his face, doubling over his middle. “What is going on? What is going on?”

For a few long minutes, the only sound was the boy saying that to himself over and over. Rick heard nothing else from the woods, save the screaming in the distance. He let the kid have a moment to breathe, and then got hands on his shoulders, making him stand upright again. He was shaking, dark eyes darting all around.

“Hey, hey, easy,” Rick said, holding him steady. “My name is Rick, and this is Shane.”

“G-G-Glenn.”

“You just stay here with us for now, Glenn.” Rick faced the group again, now full of new faces. He kept his voice low, a calm whisper that did not betray how afraid he was. “If we all just stay together, and stay calm, we can try to stay safe through the night, okay? But that only works if everyone is cooperating. So, I need everybody to take a breath.”

Several people took his advice literally, and the rest just stared at him, waiting.

“Okay.” Rick looked to his partner. “Shane and I are both police officers. We have guns. Shane is gonna be at the front, and I’ll be at the back. We’re gonna walk in a line, in pairs. Follow the people in front of you as closely as you can.”

“Where are we going?” Carol asked sheepishly.

“Not far, but we have to find someplace safe. We’re too exposed out here, too close to the highway.” He hated that terrified look in her eyes. “I’m gonna do my best to find your husband. You can hold me to that.”

She nodded, looking down sharply, tears piling over her cheeks.

“If you see a walker, just holler,” Shane added.

“W-Walker?” Glenn asked.

“You shoot ‘em, they just keep comin’,” Shane clarified.

It began that way, in a forest on the far side of the highway, a little group marching two-by-two into the night. Rick never let his guard down, never put his gun away. He let the images of Atlanta burning fuel his mind. Whatever came in the morning, he was ready.


	2. What We Were

Chapter 2.  
What We Were.  
Negan.

It was a nice day for everything to go to shit. Negan thought it must have been the best day there had ever been, all warm and sunny, with a gentle breeze, leaves all green, sky all blue. But there was an unmistakable difference in the air, something very wrong with the town. It was the screaming in the distance. He kept his eyes on the horizon, where the road curved and people were climbing through the shattered front of a store – it was just there, just beyond that.

Something was coming.

He rolled the tip of a baseball bat back and forth over the asphalt, eyes on the road.

Negan tapped on the office door, “Hey, baby, we gotta get moving. Get your shit together.”

The looters down the road scattered.

One of the infected appeared around the corner, attracted to the glass breaking. It limped steadily after the fleeing people, jerking first toward the closest, and then toward a man who was shouting.

Negan stilled his bat, every muscle tense, “Baby?”

It turned unmistakably in his direction as the looter sprinted up the road.

He banged on the door this time, “Come on, before I drag you out.”

Lucille emerged from the office, a duffel bag over her shoulder, her hand on her mouth as she beheld the scene unfolding in the street. He was closer now, and it was obvious the looter was a young kid, no more than fourteen or fifteen. “Negan…?” she whispered.

He groaned, “Get in the car.”

“But-”

“I’m gonna help him, just get your ass in the car.”

Dr. Todd came out, her eyes on the boy in the road, and the infected man pursuing him.

“Oh, wow, she does come outside. I thought your kind burned in the sun.” Negan motioned down the road. “You can take it, if you want. I just cleaned this bat, and I know how much sucking the souls out of youths turns you on.” She glared at him. He grinned. “No?”

She was already closing the door as she responded, “I wish you weren’t such an asshole.”

“Would an asshole save this poor kid?” he said, and then he sighed. “I always love our little talks. See you on the other side, you raging bitch.”

Negan started toward them, banging his bat on the trunk to get their attention – the kid turned toward him, shouting and waving, “Help!” and the infected limped after him, groaning.

It was a slow chase, an insidious progression, but a chase nonetheless. Negan thought it was unnerving, creepier than something sprinting toward him. He had not seen one actually reach their target yet, but he knew what would happen when it did. It had blood trailing from its mouth and down its shirt, bits of meat dangling from its gnashing teeth.

When the kid reached him, he nearly fell in his haste to get behind Negan. His pockets were still bulging with the shit he had stolen.

“Bad karma, kid,” he remarked.

Negan strode forward, gripping his bat with two hands. He could feel his pulse racing through his palms. He lunged, catching the infected man straight across the face. A shower of blood erupted and burst backward, spraying the pavement. The man crumpled, going as still as he should have been the first time he died. Negan staggered with the force of his swing.

When he turned, the kid was gone.

Lucille said nothing in the car. She shuffled her legs to accommodate his bloody baseball bat, and then gazed out the window at the body in the street. She looked a little green, a little paler than usual, and her hand slid up to touch her throat.

“Please, try not to yarf in the car.”

She rolled her eyes, but her voice trembled, “How about we pump you full of chemicals and see if you yarf in the car. And that man… He was… He was…”

“He was already dead.”

“But he was still a person. He was still someone.”

“Yeah, someone who was gonna kill that kid.”

She was quiet.

“Did she give you enough?” he asked.

She gripped the side of the duffel, “Enough until this blows over.”

It was difficult to leave Chester – not from an emotional side, because there might not be any other town that Negan liked less, but physically difficult, because the roads were blocked. It usually only took him a few minutes to get onto the highway, but every route he tried was either jammed with stopped cars or surrounded by fields of shuffling infected. Lucille trembled when she saw one.

“Do you think…?” Lucille began, trailing off.

“What?”

“Do you think they’ll find a way to help them?”

He snorted. “Baby, they’re dead already.”

“I know that. But they might be able to help them.”

“Dead is dead, no coming back from that.”

She was silent, looking away from him.

“Hey, you asked for my opinion, and I gave it. We needed a purge, anyway.”

“Be serious,” she chided.

“I am being serious – serious as cancer.”

“You’re such an asshole.”

“If I was as big of an asshole as everyone says, I would have left you at the house. All you’ve done is complain and talk shit. I would have had a much nicer ride on my own – and I bet that mouth wouldn’t be so big if you were out here alone.”

She gave him that look that they both knew – the look that said they were both full of shit.

“I would have gone with Dean,” she said.

“Dean? You think Captain Limp-Dick and his crotch rocket will keep you safe? Maybe we can still find him. I’ll drop you off, see how long he can handle your chemo-farts.”

Lucille laughed.

“I’ll keep you safe and make you laugh while I do it,” Negan went on. “I would give you one day with Dean before you lost your damn mind. He’s too serious.”

“This is serious. People are dying – lots of people.”

“Yeah but getting our panties all twisted ain’t gonna bring ‘em back, and it’s certainly not gonna keep them off our ass. That’s why I brought the bat.”

She rolled her eyes, “I’ve seen you swing a bat. I was never impressed.”

“Oh yeah? You sure? I knocked that thing into the next world back there, and I looked cool as shit doing it, too. I might get out and take out a few more, work on my swing.”

She smiled, reaching over to take his free hand. “You’re so full of shit.”

“Yeah, you love it.”

Chesterfield eluded him over and over. Negan started strangling the steering wheel as they circled back a fourth time. He took them down a route with the infected wandering around in the road and had to do a quick U-turn to avoid them – Lucille heaved out the window. He took them down the last possible route, a highway he never used, and slowed to a stop about two miles down it.

It ended abruptly in a traffic snarl, where an 18-wheeler had flipped on its side and blocked the whole road. A few cars were lined up behind it, sideways, noses touching. Negan kept his hands on the wheel, kept the car running. His gas gauge was falling steadily.

“We can walk,” Lucille said halfheartedly.

He had nothing funny to say.

“How do you feel?”

“I can do it. I just need you to carry the bags.”

Negan was reluctant to leave the car. A thousand options ran through his mind. They could go back home and try to wait it out in their neighborhood, but they had little food stockpiled and the stores they passed had already been looted – and some were overrun with infected people. It would be risky and time-consuming to get back into Chester, and they might wind their gas down completely and be left without a vehicle. They could turn around and retry some other routes, hope the infected had moved on, or that he could plow through them.

Or they could leave the car and go by foot, hoofing the last four miles into Chesterfield and hoping they had fared better than Chester.

He loaded the bags onto his shoulders, gripped the bat in his right hand, and they set off.

Lucille was unsteady. She walked behind him, meandering, sometimes stopping to catch her breath. She rejected his offer to take a break. As they got closer to the cars, his skin started crawling. It was impossible to see beyond the 18-wheeler.

“I’ll climb up, you stay here, shout if you see anything.”

Negan scrambled up the truck axel.

“Dean would have been much smoother,” Lucille commented.

“If we run into him, make sure you tell him that,” Negan said, hauling himself onto the side of the truck. The metal scalded his bare arms. “Jesus, it’s like an oven up here.”

“Do you see anything?”

He got to his feet, took a few steps, and froze.

Negan stood perfectly still, watching a dozen or more figures limp up and down the road beyond, utterly directionless for now. Some of them were close enough to identify – a young woman, a man in a gray suit, a guy with a cast on his arm. Some had blood splattered down from their mouths onto their shirts. Bodies lay in the road, covered in flies. His stomach churned.

He turned back to the road behind them and saw the same thing in the distance, not quite close enough to worry, but definitely headed in their direction. Even as he stood there, the bobbing heads the way they had come multiplied.

Negan climbed down, careful not to make a sound, and grabbed Lucille by the hand, whispering, “Stay quiet, follow me.”

It was time to leave the road, and the car.

Lucille registered what he had seen a moment later than him, her hand shutting like a vice around his. He felt her begin to shake, felt her pulse quicken. She stumbled a few times and he tightened his grip, keeping her upright by sheer force of will. Negan focused wholly ahead, mapping his route, placing his feet on the quietest path, and Lucille’s head swiveled as she beheld the infected before them, and the mob forming behind.

Negan stopped when they made it into the forest, when the underbrush was thick enough to conceal them. He watched the infected, watched the group coming up the road grow larger and stall at the overturned truck. Some of them found their way around, others milled about, going off in random directions. Some started on worrying paths toward the woods.

When he turned back, Lucille was on one knee, breathing heavily, her sides heaving.

“Hey, hey,” he circled her, crouching nearby and pulling off her knit hat. “Let that dome breathe. I would offer to hold back your hair, but… you know.”

She tried to smile, and threw up again, “I hate you.”

“Is this because you’re scared? Or are you just really out of shape?”

She panted, speaking between breaths, “I think it might be both.”

Negan helped her back to her feet. She leaned heavily into him, resting her face against his neck. “Your boobs have the worst timing, honey, I swear. Six months ago, and you could be lying back, eating an ice pop. Do you think this is karma for that time you stole a pen at the bank?”

She laughed, “It was an accident.”

“You sure? I remember it differently.” He stroked her head, and murmured, “We gotta keep going. I know it sucks, but we gotta.”

She nodded into his neck.

Negan started a path parallel to the road, calling back to her, “Stop looking at my ass.”

Lucille laughed and followed.

It was a slow, unsteady walk. Lucille kept having to stop, to dry heave into the bushes, to rest on her knees with her palms on the ground. Negan watched her, sharing her misery. It was like someone was pinching his heart, watching her struggle like this. She rejected his offer to carry her three times, and then after struggling for another half hour, he offered again. She just sat down and cried, hugging her knees.

Negan sunk down beside her, against the trunk of a pine tree nearly choked in vines. He drew her into his side, and she quieted, staring at the forest with wet eyes.

“Our first date was something like this,” he commented.

She said nothing.

“What, nothing? Come on, you love correcting me.”

She gave the faintest smile, “Our first date was in a diner, you doof.”

“There she is.”

Lucille rolled her head against his shoulder, sighing, “You should go.”

“Oh, don’t start that.”

“I’m serious, baby, you should just leave me here.”

Negan felt a flash of fear, followed by anger, “You better cut that shit out.”

She was unfazed by his tone, “It’ll be dark soon.”

He tipped her head up, noticing how awful she was starting to look. She was paler, her eyes red, her face drawn. Negan experienced a brief, powerful memory of who she used to be – curly brown hair, impossibly warm eyes, a smile that was so alive. Her face haunted him then, and it haunted him now. It floored him to see her this way, trembling, frightened, and begging him to leave her behind. It was not just wrong, not just cruel, but crushing.

Negan cupped her face delicately, afraid of adding the slightest hurt to her heavy burden, and said, “Baby, I talk a lot of shit, but you know damn well I’m not leavin’ you here.”

She let her head drop onto his shoulder and shut her eyes tightly, “I need you to carry me, then.”

He carried her on his back. It was not such a feat now, because she was a shell of the woman she was. She weighed seventy pounds, max. But the task still wore him down, made him sweat, made the muscles in his arms and legs burn like fire. He showed little of that to Lucille, pressing on for as long as he could, and only breaking when he thought he might drop her.

It went on like that until dusk, until the woods opened up into a broader field dotted with a few houses, on long driveways back from the empty road. Negan set Lucille down and they ventured out of the trees together.

“Do you think they evacuated?” Lucille wondered.

Negan stared at the first home, looking for signs of movement. He wanted to stay out in the open, where there were no corners for the infected to come limping around, but there was no way they could keep going. Lucille was deathly tired, and he was rapidly running out of steam. He could force himself to go on if he had to, but it would suck.

“Maybe we could sleep here for the night,” Lucille said. “I don’t think they would mind, given the circumstances. I mean, I’m sure they would understand. We can leave it just like we found it.”

It was quiet around here. Chesterfield was another mile or two down the road, at least. If they kept going, they would be stumbling around in the dark, or using flashlights and attracting unwanted attention. But the houses seemed so ominous to him.

“Negan?” Lucille touched his arm, frowning, “You’re shaking.”

“I’m tired,” he responded, pulling away from her touch. “Let’s check it out. Stay close to me.”

He went to the back door, trying the knob. It was locked. He put his bat through one of the window panes and reached in. Lucille hovered behind him.

“Stay here. I’m gonna make sure it’s empty.”

Negan stepped inside, through a small kitchen. Someone had left breakfast out on the table – soggy cereal and rubbery bacon. They had not been gone for more than a day. Still, the house had that absent look about it – drawers open, closet doors cracked, beds unmade. Whoever had lived here had gone and packed a bag, probably heading to the refugee camp.

He was on edge the whole time he was inside, checking every closet, every dark corner, even peeking into the attic.

He was just heading back downstairs when he heard Lucille screaming.

Negan had never taken stairs so fast in his life – two or three at a time, vaulting down the railing. Lucille crashed into him at the bottom, with an infected man limping after her.

He was terrible, half his face missing, a big hole leaking in his chest. And he was groaning, hungering, reaching out for them – reaching out for her.

Negan swung his bat, putting more force into it than he should have. When it made contact, the thing’s whole skull exploded from the pressure, splattering the walls with filth. It hit the ground with a solid thunk at his feet, oozing blackish blood onto the carpet.

Lucille held him from behind, hiding her face in his back. “It just walked into the yard.”

“It’s okay. It ain’t walking anywhere now. You still wanna talk shit about my swing?”

She stared at the body, shaking.

“Come on, the water is still working. I’ll get the doors closed, and you go up and take a bath, try to calm down. I’ll find us something to eat.”

She cleared her throat, “I think I’ll just stay with you.”

“Rest of the house is empty,” he said, but she made no move to leave. “Okay. Okay.”

He dragged the body outside, tossing it down the steps and relocking the door. He taped over the pane he had broken. While he worked, Lucille dug around in the cabinets, pulling down some peanut butter, bread, and utensils and making them sandwiches.

She came to him with two plates full of food, frowning, “I can leave a note, explain-”

“Sweet pea, they don’t give a shit. They up and left. Let’s eat upstairs.”

Negan stripped and shimmied under the covers of a king-sized bed, lying still and resting for a few minutes before he touched his food. Lucille picked at hers, taking it into the bathroom with her. She lay in the water with just her face sticking out, her eyes shut, for hours. Negan kept going in to check on her, sure she would fall asleep and drown.

She came into the bedroom when it had been dark for several hours, poking around in the drawers until she settled on an overlarge shirt to sleep in. “Must have been a big guy living here,” she commented, slipping it on and holding it out to show him the size.

Negan stirred from a sort of trance. He had been staring at the blank TV for half an hour, hoping it would just spontaneously turn on. “Jesus, you could fit us both in that,” he responded. “Did you see any pictures around? I gotta get a look at this land whale.”

“You should be grateful for him. We needed a break.”

“I’d be grateful if he had a few oranges in the place, maybe a banana. I got scurvy just walking in the door – not a fresh food to be found.”

“Oh, please, you had three hotdogs for breakfast this morning.” Lucille crawled in beside him, snuggling into his side like she always did.

Negan put an arm around her. “I’m trim, if anything. You, on the other hand, could stand to gain a few pounds. Your thigh just touched mine and I thought Skeletor was in bed with us.”

“You tend to lose weight when you feel like death every day.” She smirked, and then laughed when he pretended to be stabbed by her elbow. “This is why I stopped inviting you to chemo.”

“You didn’t stop inviting me, I stopped offering to take you. All those other husbands and wives have sticks up their asses.”

“No, you’re just mean.”

“I’m not mean. When have I ever been mean?”

“You just compared me to Skeletor.”

“In jest.”

She smiled, “Not everybody gets your sense of humor.”

“You’re the only one who matters.”

“Mm. Maybe. But some people see it differently than me, and then I never hear the end of it.”

“Oh, yeah, like your doctor. She had the audacity to call me an asshole. Me – the light of your life.”

“She called you much worse than that before you rushed me out of there.”

“Yeah? Well, I probably deserved it.”

Lucille smiled, and leaned her head on his shoulder. Her skin was warm against his, and she was not nearly as bony as he pretended she was. She had gained a lot of weight back from her last relapse months ago and had only just started losing it again.

Her voice was quieter, like she was falling asleep.

“We were talking about just going ahead with the mastectomy, both sides.”

She tipped her head up to look at his face, as if waiting for him to say something shitty about getting rid of her breasts. He had tried in the past to make her understand that her body was just a bonus in their relationship – his love for her was the purest thing about him. He had no words to explain it, though, no way to express something so abstract. Sometimes she got it, but when she was really down and exhausted, it slipped her mind.

Negan kissed her forehead, “Whatever it takes. But you might have to put it on hold for now.”

Lucille was quiet for a while, so long that he was sure she was asleep, but then she finally whispered something that broke his heart. “I hate you seeing me like this. You married a badass and now you have to deal with – well, this.”

“Baby, you’re still a badass. You know that. I admire you.”

“From a safe distance.”

“I’m not afraid I’m gonna catch the cancer, honey.” When she said nothing, he went on, “Hey, you lose all the hair you want, all the weight you want, all the boob you want – you’re still hot as shit.”

She laughed, and drifted off.


	3. Happening

Chapter 3.  
Happening.  
Carol.

God does not let us down. God protects us. God lifts us up. God keeps us warm.

Carol Peletier was awake for hours before the sun rose. She sat against the back wall of a ruined tobacco barn, her daughter curled up sleeping against her leg. She kept a hand on her, worried she would just disappear like her father. Her fear kept her alert, kept her aware, kept her together. It made the moving shadows around the barn into other people. One at a time, they joined her, awake and afraid, silent for fear of the darkness outside.

She fingered the cross around her neck, and repeated her prayer like a mantra, determined to make it mean something. God does not let us down. God protects us. God lifts us up. God keeps us warm.

Rick was the first to speak as the barn was lit by a gloomy dawn. He rose from his family, a tall, rugged man – first light illuminated the dried blood sprayed across his jaw. His expression was grim as he looked around at all of them.

“Everyone, wake up. Come on. Check yourselves for injuries, now that we have the light.”

Carol had a gash on her thigh from getting whacked by a spike stick. It was red and angry this morning, the skin puffed up over the scratches, but it looked a lot worse than it felt. She quietly turned her leg to the side, hiding it in shadow. Sophia had tripped and hurt her ankle.

While the others got up, stretched, murmured to one another, Carol turned her attention to her daughter. It seemed cruel to let her lay there in the dirt, curled up like a lost puppy, but there was nothing better that Carol could give her. It stung, being so useless. She only had the power to let her sleep for the moment, until the sounds eventually forced her to stir. It was only an extra ten minutes, in the end, but it might mean the world to her later on.

Sophia groaned, turning her face up and peering at Carol. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying, reflecting the sunlight like glass. She had that beautiful green in them, the same as Carol, the same as her grandmother.

Carol stroked her short hair, giving her the best smile she could manage. “Hey, Button. It’s okay. We’re safe here. We’re safe.”

“Where?” Sophia rasped.

“Way out in the woods, in a barn. Do you remember?”

Sophia nodded sleepily, resting her face on Carol’s thigh and sighing. She drew her leg up and winced, a single tear going down her cheek. “It still hurts.”

“I know. I know it does.” Carol looked over her ankle, finding it hot and swollen, but not broken She tried to keep her emotions to herself, but the relief was hard to hide. “Nothing is broken. Give it a few days to rest, or it might get mean.”

“Like your wrist?”

“Mhm.”

Rick was making his rounds, checking everyone out. He got around to them and crouched at a respectful distance, recognizing how afraid Sophia was. “Hey, your name is Sophia, right? I’m Rick. We met on the highway last night.”

When she had tripped and twisted her ankle in the woods, Rick had been the one to pick her up and carry her the rest of the way. Carol was not strong enough.

Sophia nodded shyly.

“Do you mind if I check that ankle out?”

Carol was almost certain her diagnosis was right, but she knew men liked to take charge, knew there was nothing they liked less than a woman knowing more than they did, so she invited him to look again.

His exam was short and simple.

“I think she just sprained it. Nothing feels broken. She should stay off it for a while.”

Carol nodded, “Thank you.”

He tipped his wide-brimmed sheriff hat and moved on. Carol answered a few more questions for her daughter – why are we here? Where is Ed? Why did those people on the highway try to hurt them? How long did they have to stay here? – but she kept her eyes on the sheriff.

Rick made his last stop with a man who had stumbled into the barn, injured, in the middle of the night. He had been gasping too much to give anyone his name and he had slept, curled up, in the far corner, near the open part of the wall. Shane had been with him since dawn, a comforting hand on his back, whispering with him.

He was large, his torn clothes covered in blood. One of his arms was tucked into his stomach.

Rick crouched, and prompted him quietly, “Sir? Hey, can you hear me? I want to look at your wounds, see if I can help you.”

“He says his name is Charlie,” Shane supplied. “He hurt his arm.”

Carol watched with bated breath. It seemed everyone had stopped to watch, to wait, to see what was going to happen here. She had seen many badly injured people on the highway, but how were they supposed to help them here? In the middle of the woods there would be no ambulance, no paramedics. Was the hospital even open? Was it still standing?

“We just want to check you out. Can we do that?” Rick prompted.

Long, long seconds passed with only the sound of his harsh breathing.

“Can you show me your arm?” Rick asked.

And then Charlie finally responded, “Yes. Help. Please.”

He unfolded his arm and let it hang beside him. It was shredded, meaty, dripping blood along its length. It looked like someone had sliced up a raw sausage.

A barn full of people gasped. Jacqui turned and vomited. Sophia screamed. Carol staggered to her feet, sucking in a breath. Glenn seemed ready to bolt, but his legs were not working. He just bounced up and down on the spot.

Lori took a step toward her husband, “Rick…?”

For the moment, the sheriff was silent.

Shane tried to speak, but only uttered nonsense.

“Help,” the man rattled again.

Rick shook himself, his voice returning, “He’s lost a lot of blood. Does anybody have an extra shirt or a towel or anything? We need to wrap this wound.”

It was hard to watch them work, to hear it. Rick sent everyone else out of the barn, and the group gathered at a brick pile just a dozen yards away. It was impossible to go far enough in those woods to get away from the screaming.

Rick came out half an hour later, trailed by Shane. Both men had blood all over their hands and forearms, and dark looks on their faces.

“Charlie is stable for now,” Rick said, sighing heavily. “But, without a doctor he won’t make it. That’s just the truth. Shane and I are going back to the highway to find help. If anyone wants to come, you can, but know that it might still be dangerous out there.”

Carol asked, “Will you look for Ed?”

Rick nodded, “I’ll look for him. You have my word.” He looked almost reflexively at his wife, and then at the ground, “If I don’t come back…”

“You have to,” Carl said in a high, whining voice. “Dad…”

Rick handed the boy his hat, whispering, “I need you to keep this safe for me until I get back, okay? I’m comin’ back. I am.”

Dale cleared his throat and crossed his arms resolutely, “I want to come with you. I have to look for Andrea and Amy – and I have an RV. It might have something useful in it. I was heading out of the city, so the road is mostly clear around it.”

It was decided. Rick, Shane, and Dale left for the highway. Shane gave his spare gun to Lori, and she sat down beside Carol with it sitting in her lap.

It had only been quiet for a moment when Carol said, “Do you think Ed…?”

Lori looked at her, sympathy in her dark eyes. “Ed is fine. He probably found somewhere to stay overnight, just like us.”

Carol managed a smile. “How long have you been married?”

“Going on fifteen years. How old is your Sophia? Carl just turned twelve.”

“Just about the same.”

Lori was quiet for a moment, gazing at the forest, a bit of distance in her eyes, and then she said, “Rick took us camping once when Carl was little. I hated it. I got eaten alive by mosquitoes, and Carl got sun poisoning. He cried and cried. When we got back home, I wouldn’t talk to Rick for three days. I think he got the message, because he sold all our camping gear and never brought it up again. But we laugh about it now.”

Silence.

“Despite everything that happened, you have to admit it’s beautiful out here.”

Happened, or happening? Carol thought. She imagined the monsters on the highway, the groaning, the clicked jaws, as she looked out into the quiet woods. It was as pretty a morning as Georgia could have, but she still hated it, hated this place. She wanted to be home. She wanted her daughter to be safe. She wanted Ed… well, she was uncertain about that.

She changed the subject.

“Do you know how to shoot?”

Lori looked down at the gun in her lap, as if she had just noticed it there. “Yeah. I take refreshers every few years. Rick wanted to teach Carl, but I just wanted him to have a few more years without a gun in his hands, you know? He already wants to be a police officers, like his dad.”

“Let kids be kids,” Carol agreed.

“Exactly. Do you shoot?”

“Oh, no. Ed doesn’t… well, Ed has a collection, but I’m not… I don’t like guns.”

Carol danced around the truth and hated herself for it. Ed had a gun collection that she was not allowed to touch. Sometimes she went into his private room when he wasn’t home and pulled them out, loaded in the bullets, and sat with them for a while, half of her hoping that he would come into the room and start shouting. She lay awake thinking of moments like that, praying, trying to decide if she was the wicked one, or if he was, for making her feel that way.

She looked away, down, to keep her thoughts to herself.

Lori responded softly, “Rick being sheriff, we had to get used to it. But I never liked having guns in the house. I hate the thought of Carl getting hurt.”

Carol smiled suddenly, remembering her second date with Ed. She was still in high school, a sophomore, and he was a senior. He had taken her to the shooting range and put his arms around her to show her how to aim. When their daughter was born, Carol had fantasized that this sweet version of him would return. She waited for it every day. But so far Ed had shattered that life she imagined. He liked them to be quiet. He liked his loud friends. He liked his private rooms.

And now he might be dead.

She might be raising Sophia on her own.

Everyone started to grow restless as the morning passed into afternoon. Carol and Lori chatted about everything and nothing, and others joined and left the conversation. She learned the Lori was a stay at home mom, like her, and that Jacqui worked in the office of city planning in Atlanta. If he was asked a direct question, Glenn would respond, but he was busy pacing the perimeter, alert to every sound, stopping to ask himself, again, what was going on. He was responsible for checking on Charlie, and each time he came out of the barn, his face was paler.

It got hot the longer the afternoon went, as hot as Carol could remember it being, and everyone was hungry and thirsty. Her stomach growled, beginning to ache, and Sophia and Carl complained constantly – there was nothing to feed them, to feed anyone. Carol and Lori tried to keep them occupied, keep their minds off of it, but it never lasted long.

Glenn went off looking for water in the late afternoon. He never went far, as nervous as he was, but he probed the area all around the barn and seemed guilty when he brought nothing back.

It was almost evening when the quiet spell of the woods was broken.

Jacqui heard it first, saw it first. She was sitting against a tree near the barn entrance and she jumped up suddenly, screaming, falling over her feet trying to back away.

Everything stopped all at once. Carol stopped thinking, stopped breathing. She was on her feet, eyes wide and searching, heart racing, before the fear could process. Lori was right beside her, and the two of them formed a protective barrier in front of the kids.

He was there, limping out of the barn. Charlie. His eyes were lifeless. His skin was sallow. His bandaged arm hung limply at his side. He uttered a terrible, long groaning sound that cut off and restarted with each step. He seemed pointless, directionless, and then his body turned toward Carol and Lori, who were closest to him, and his eyes seemed to try and focus on them.

He walked, one unsteady step at a time, a halting motion.

Carol was briefly overwhelmed with terror. It was happening again, just like on the highway. Only her husband was not here this time to yell at her to get into the car. She had to make a choice, to save herself, and her daughter.

She twisted, grabbing Sophia under the arms and hauling her upright. “Go! Run!” she screamed. Carl was already on his feet. She shoved them both, “Get back!”

Lori was backing away, leveling the gun at him, barking commands, “Stay back! Stay there!” Her voice cracked. Carol staggered on the spot, unsure if she should go to the kids, or stay and help. “Jesus,” Lori gasped, “Please, Charlie, please stop!”

But he just kept coming, like he heard nothing, like he knew nothing.

Like he was nothing.

“Shoot him! What are you doing?” Glenn shouted.

Lori faltered, trembled, and then fired. She clipped him in the jaw. It was ripped sideways and hung off of his face. He stumbled but did not stop. She fired again, and the bullet tore through his neck, nearly taking his head off, blowing flesh and blood backwards into the barn.

She fired again, one final shot to the head, and Charlie dropped to the ground.

He was still this time – still as death.

Carol went to the kids, who had only gone to the first tree to hide and held them both in her arms like a terrified mother hen. Glenn was pacing again, saying to himself, “Oh my God, what is going on? What is going on?”

“Mom?” Carl called.

Lori shook herself, like her husband had that morning, and came over to them. Her eyes were glassy. Carl broke away to embrace her. Lori held her boy, the gun hanging limply behind his back. She let out a single sob and shut her eyes, and a single tear went down her cheek.

“He was…?” Carol said, though her words fell on deaf ears. Sophia was holding her waist so tightly that her knuckles turned white. “He died… He died.”

Glenn approached the body, his voice low and purposeful, “He was bitten, all over his arm. Whatever this is, if you get bitten, you get infected and you… you become one of them.” He cleared his throat, cleared his husky voice. “I think they were trying to figure out if it was airborne, or came from sneezing, or whatever, but this tells us. You have to get bitten.”

“It could still be spread other ways,” Jacqui said, gradually coming back toward them. She never took her eyes off the body. “We shouldn’t touch it.”

“O-O-Okay just everybody stay here, stay together,” Lori said, finding her voice. She let go of her son at last and turned to stare at the body, fear and regret all over her face. “We’ll wait for the others to get back – we’ll wait for Rick to get back.”

It was getting dark when the men returned. Rick called softly, “It’s us, don’t shoot,” and then they emerged from the forest behind the barn. But there were more of them now.

Rick was first, more haggard than he had been this morning, and a little sunburnt, and then six strangers came behind him. Dale was mixed among them. Shane was at the rear, a large hiking backpack on his shoulders. He looked spooked.

“What happened?” Rick asked, as everyone came around and noticed the walker.

Lori went to him and put her arms around his neck, whispering, “Charlie… he was one of them. I had to shoot him. I didn’t know what else to do.”

“She saved us,” Carol added.

“You did the right thing,” Rick assured her, his eyes fixating on the walker over her shoulder, probably feeling the gravity of the situation. It could have gotten his wife, or his son. He pulled away from Lori to address the group, “We have to find a safer place to stay. Out here, we’re too exposed, too vulnerable. We can’t possibly watch all angles, and if more than one of them comes this way, we might get overwhelmed. We scouted a quarry a few miles north of here. It looks like we can get a few vehicles up there as long as they come from the southbound side of the road. It’ll be more defensible than this, with access to fresh water.”

Carl wormed his way between his parents, “Did you find food?”

Shane shrugged off the backpack, “We got a few things. It was what was left in Dale’s RV.”

“Sorry if it tastes like can,” Dale added.

“Some water bottles, too. Pass those around.”

Rick distributed the cans, “Everyone take one and share it with someone. It’s the best we can do right now. We’ll spend another night here. Dale and I will go out at first light and start moving cars up to the quarry and see what we’re dealing with up there. If it’s safe, I’ll come back and take you all there through the woods. I don’t want to risk everyone going back on the road right now.”

His words were hardly comforting. Carol took a can of corn and sat with Sophia, watching the dark grow around them as the girl ate her fill. It was not enough for both of them, not really, so Carol insisted Sophia finish it. She was feeling sick anyway. Her eyes kept going back to the corpse, the body that used to be a man, and wondering if that was what was in store for them all – either the predator, or the prey. It must have been awful, getting bitten like that, and then suffering on into the next day, only to die and become the very thing that had hurt him.

Rick made the rounds again, and he got to them when it was almost too dark to see. He crouched and put a hand on her shoulder. “Hey, Carol, Sophia, how you holdin’ up?”

“Fine,” she lied.

“I went looking for Ed, but I didn’t find any sign of him on the road. He must still be in the woods somewhere, maybe towards the quarry if we’re lucky.”

Carol breathed deeply. She was still uncertain how she felt about his disappearance. She wanted him back at first, because that was a normal thing to want, but lately her only real concern had been for her daughter. “What did you see out there? On the highway?”

His eyes were dark, clouded, “I want to talk about that with everyone. I want to get the barn shut up for the night. Will you and Sophia come inside?”

She nodded, her throat a little thick as she said, “Come on, honey.”

Rick and Shane dragged a rotting piece of drywall over the hole in the side of the barn. It was dotted with holes where the mold had eaten through it, letting in odd dots of moonlight, but the cover put the group at ease. Rick lit a meager fire and they all sat around it, their faces illuminated. It was not large enough or tall enough to be very warm, but the light was enough.

“I want to make some introductions to start,” Rick said. He motioned to the new people, naming them in turn, beginning with two blonde women that sat with Dale, “Andrea, Amy.” He moved on to an elderly couple who sat holding hands, “Marshall, Edith.” And the man beside them, who looked very much like them, “and their son, William.” He came last to a black man sitting beside Shane, who stared quietly into the fire, “Theodore.”

“You can call me T-dog,” the man corrected, flashing a tense smile.

“Right. T-dog.” Rick then started naming everyone else. “You know me, Rick, and Shane, and Dale, and this is Lori, my wife, and my son Carl. Glenn. Jacqui. Carol and her daughter Sophia.”

It was a strange group, a strange place to meet, a strange night to try to know each other. But the strangers still smiled hesitantly and stopped being strangers.

“We found these people along the highway,” Rick said. He made a space for himself beside Lori and put his arm protectively around her shoulders, his other hand on his son. “It was… abandoned. No people and hardly any walkers.”

“No police?” Glenn asked.

Rick shook his head. “I think – and I hate saying this – but I think we’re on our own for now.”

Shane added, “But as long as we stay together, we might have a chance. You folks could have scattered when that walker came out of the barn, but you stuck together. That’s what we gotta do. We gotta stick together.”

For a moment, everyone was silent.

Jacqui asked, “How are we going to get food? Water?”

“Once we get to the quarry, we can go out looking for food,” Shane said. “We can forage, see if the abandoned cars have anything useful in them, maybe set some traps. As for water, the quarry has a lake in the middle, but we have to boil it before we drink it, just to be on the safe side.”

He got blank stares in response.

Sophia looked up at Carol, whispering, “I’m hungry.”

“We all are, sweetie,” Carol responded softly.

Rick frowned to himself. “What you guys saw today with Charlie, we saw something like that back in King County a few days before all this got started. I didn’t want to believe it at the time, or maybe I wasn’t ready to believe it yet. One of the residents, guy named Henry, local drunk, always getting into trouble, got detained and thrown in jail after a fight with another man. Well, the other guy was shot dead at the scene because he was… he was biting him, not listening to commands, shred the skin on his arm just like how it was with Charlie.”

He glanced at Shane, and there was a long pause in his story. No one spoke.

“Paramedics patched Henry up and put him in our jail for the time being. He got real sick overnight and the deputy noticed ‘round the morning. He opened the cell to render aid, and Henry just lunged at him, like an animal, rabid as anything. He just…”

He paused, and Shane finished, “He killed him, took his damn throat out.”

Carol looked down at Sophia, who was drifting in her arms, thankfully not paying attention to this chilling story. She had seen it firsthand now, but those words still frightened her.

“I guess that confirms it,” Rick said. “He got bit, and then he became like them. I wish I had made the connection earlier. I put you all in danger by letting Charlie come in. I’m sorry for that.”

“You didn’t know,” Lori murmured, rubbing his arm.

Shane plucked his hat off and ran a hand through his thick hair. Carol was starting to think he only did that when he was stressed. “Everybody got that? You see one of those things, you run in the other direction. Do not try to fight them, or talk to them, ‘cause they don’t talk back. They’re gone. They’re dead. There ain’t nothin’ left in that head to reason with.”

It was quiet for a while.

Carol rocked gently back and forth, humming, and Sophia fell asleep in her arms. People talked amongst themselves, but the conversations died away. Gradually, they laid down to sleep, staying close to the fire and close to one another. Carol did her best to stay up, to stay aware, but exhaustion overtook her and she slipped away.


	4. The Dead

Chapter 4.  
The Dead.  
Daryl.

Daryl Dixon was dreaming of the little creek behind his childhood home – how it wound around the trees, exposing their roots along its steep bank, how it raced after a rainstorm, how his tire swing twisted and groaned in the wind. He was watching it, as relaxed as he had ever been, when a pine cone struck him in the face and brought him back into the real world.

He put his arms up to protect himself and rolled off of the tree limb he was perched on. His arm hooked instinctually around the branch and, for a few precious seconds, he dangled twenty feet above the ground.

“Oh, careful there, I ain’t carryin’ your ass.”

His brother stalked the bottom of the tree like a hunting hound. He was big and bulky, grinning, all kinds of ugly packed into one mean mug.

“Come on, move your ass,” Merle rasped. He had smoked just about everything you could smoke his whole life and there was no getting your voice back after that. “You’re wastin’ daylight up there, boy. Come on.”

Daryl scrambled back onto the limb, his heart racing. It was barely dawn, too early for this shit.

“I said, move your ass!” Merle threw another pine cone.

Daryl groaned, “I’m comin’, damn!”

“I swear, I ain’t never seen a fella scurry up a tree like you before, little brother,” Merle commented. “If I wasn’t so sure your ass was part possum for that ugly face, I’d say you was half-squirrel at least. You know, Momma was goin’ through a wild phase when you was-”

He was interrupted when Daryl made it to the ground and chucked a stick at his face. Merle knocked it away with his broad forearm, smiling.

“Look at you, all sunshine and rainbows this mornin’,” he cooed. He held up a string of squirrels. “I bagged us a few while you was snoozin’, you recognize any of these? Maybe you got a long-lost uncle on this string.” When he got no response, he shrugged, “Cat got your tongue?”

Both of them looked up when a branch snapped nearby.

Merle lost his playful attitude and tucked the squirrels into his bag, his face grim. “Ain’t seen hide or heel of that herd passed through last night, but I ain’t tryin’ to stick around. Get your shit and let’s move. Highway ain’t far from here.”

It was already hot out. Daryl hauled his backpack over his sore shoulders and hooked his crossbow to it, following his brother into the trees.

He watched the forest, listened to it. Every now and then they passed a copse of red maple, a yellowwood or two, or a lone green ash – the forest was saying water. Daryl filled his canteen a few times over, gulping it down, sweating it out. They stopped to collect elderberries, eating a few for breakfast, saving most for later.

It was a one-sided conversation for a while, because Daryl was not a talker, and Merle was too busy talking to himself. He complained about the weather, grumbled about leaving his bike back home, and commented on the signs of wildlife around them.

“You see that? Black bear. Been through here recently, or them stalks would be back up by now. It was strippin’ the berries off them bushes, breakin’ the stems. Birds don’t break stems.”

“Could have been deer,” Daryl responded.

“Deer don’t like elderberries – they eat blueberries, mostly, if they’re gonna partake. We would’ve seen more stem damage, and all them shoots would be half-eaten. No. Been a bear through here, mark my words. I would love to bag me a bear, have a big old roast, pack that baby up for the road. Mmm. I brought bear home before?”

Daryl shook his head.

“Hard to describe the taste. Whatever they been eatin’. We bagged a fishy son bitch when you was a ankle-biter, made me shit my guts out for days.” He laughed. “It was a good time. Jess shot it right ‘tween the eyes, let me skin it. You wouldn’t believe the blubber on it, like openin’ up that fat bitch from that talk show, what’s ‘er name?”

Daryl shrugged.

“You get it, anyway. Big old pearls of white right under the skin. You ever bag a deer looks like that, cut it off before you cook it, ‘less you lookin’ to bleach your asshole the ol’ fashioned way.”

“Why we goin’ to the highway?”

Merle responded with less energy than before, like that question had taken the joy out of this endless march through the woods. “You heard the radio, same as me.”

“You wanna go to Atlanta?”

“Yeah.”

Daryl was quiet, watching a squirrel scamper away from them. He raised his crossbow, but then decided against firing.

“You got somethin’ else in mind, son?”

“We got warrants.”

Merle chuckled, “Boy, you heard that shit, ain’t nobody checkin’ your name at the door.”

“Why can’t we just go home?”

Merle stopped, sighing, running his hand over his sweaty face. “What’s with the twenty questions? We both agreed we had to leave. You gettin’ cold feet? You wanna turn tail and hide? There ain’t nobody left at home. We barely got outta there alive. We ain’t goin’ back.”

It was still a fresh memory to him – the blood, the screaming.

Merle groaned, but his glare softened. “Jess is dead, boy. Pa is dead. We’re on our own. It’s just you and me now. You get that?”

Daryl nodded reluctantly, “I get it.”

“Okay then. Stop this worryin’ shit, good lord.”

It took over an hour to get to the highway. Daryl listened to his brother, listened to the same lessons in tracking he had been hearing since he was a boy, and let his mind wander at the same time. He pictured the birds that were singing, imagined the tiny animals scratching around, studied the leaves and the needles beneath his feet. It was better in the woods, surrounded by trees, with a million leaves rustling to hide their existence. Merle wanted to leave that behind, to take to the road, to find other people and take shelter among them – but why?

When the forest ended, Merle set his stuff down and dragged some branches over it, and then checked the bullets in his pistol. Daryl stood by him, looking out over the wide stretch of asphalt. It was crowded on one side, the side going into Atlanta, and almost empty on the other.

Every car was stopped, gridlocked, and there were no signs of life anywhere.

Merle stood there considering it for a few moments, and then said, “Not exactly what I was hopin’ for, but we still got a lot of opportunity in front of us. Probably all panicked, left their stuff behind, hoofed it to the city limits. Come on. Let’s see what we can find to replenish our supply, maybe see if the road’s clear enough to get my truck up here.”

It was even hotter on the road. Daryl wiped sweat from his face constantly as they walked between the first row of cars. He started seeing bad signs – a flash of blood on the side of a car, a misplaced sneaker, a figure shuffling in the distance.

And the smell gradually built, a smell that embodied the essence of rot, of death, of decay. It permeated every pore, made his nose hairs burn, made him tense and edgy.

He saw the truth, at last, in the second row. He and Merle stopped and beheld it together. Bodies lay sprawled out, pieces of them missing, baking in the heat of the day. Some were barely human anymore, just chunks of meat with the remnants of clothes, eaten away down to the bone. If they still had faces, they were twisted with terror, frozen that way forever.

Merle started tapping bodies with his boot. “Dead. Dead. Super dead.” He jumped back when one of them moved and started reaching for him, “Bout to be dead, c’mere.”

He sliced its head clean in two.

Merle staggered, blood speckling his face, and wiped his blade clean on his pants leg. He put his hand hard on Daryl, squeezing his shoulder, “Go for the head, leave ‘em real dead.” He sheathed his machete. “Well, safe to say these fine folk won’t be needin’ their shit anymore.”

Daryl stood there, watching blackish blood ooze out of one half of the split skull.

“Hey, boy, come on down to Earth,” Merle said quietly, patting him hard on the back. “Don’t you get soft on me now. Go on. Get movin’.”

Daryl made himself move, doing his best not to think about what was going on. He had heard the radio, same as Merle, heard them declaring an emergency and listing shelters. He had not imagined it could be so big until now, until he walked along the road, between dozens of abandoned cars, and stepped over what was left of their passengers.

“Hey, see if you can score me some dope!” Merle called, growing further away.

It went on into the morning, until he was soaked with sweat, until his bare shoulders were sunburnt, and the smell of death stopped bothering him. Daryl wanted to stay away from the city, but Merle was leading them closer to it, and Daryl was bidden to follow.

He found countless bodies stored away, hiding, rotting – elderly people, pets, little kids, couples holding each other – and he found bloody photos and stuffed animals, wedding rings on chains, dogs dead in their kennels. He also found porn magazines, narcotics, heroin, and undoubtedly illegal weapons. He found arrows for his crossbow, a desert eagle that he tucked into his waistband, and a machete he was sure Merle would want.

His pockets were brimming with goods when he settled on a car that had slid into the divider. It seemed mostly undamaged, with no blood or gore around it, and it was packed to the ceiling.

Daryl peeked in the windows, grinning at the folded up sleeping bags inside. But the doors were locked. He tried to put his elbow through the window and failed.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Daryl whipped around, both hands going to his crossbow, but it was too late for that. He was looking down the silver-grey barrel of a shotgun.

It was held by a man in his forties, with a sunken, tired face, dark hair and a beard, and eyes as wild as anything. He had his finger on the trigger, ready to shoot, and that gun was as steady as the sun in his hands.

“I said, what do you think you’re doing?” the man repeated.

“Nothin’,” Daryl responded.

“Sure looked like something,” the man said, his voice trembling with rage. “Sure looked like you were tryin’ to steal from me. Is that what you were doing?”

“Hey! You best get that gun off him!”

Merle was shouting from down the road. Daryl tensed as his brother came into view behind the man. He could not make himself look away from the gun, as close as it was.

His brother stopped five feet away, just within his field of view, his voice booming and the veins in his face bulging, “Hey, numbnuts, I said stop that shit!”

“Back off,” the man said, his voice trembling at last.

Daryl saw it then, an unwillingness to shoot. His finger shook on the trigger. He seemed more sad than anything, that rage aimed at someone else, or something else.

Suddenly, there was another voice.

“Whoa, whoa, hey. Everybody stop. Just stop.”

Daryl did not look, but there were two people there on the edge of his vision. One voice sounded distinctly northern, a city guy, and the other was true-blue southern.

“What’s going on here?” the southern one asked.

Silence.

Daryl swallowed, a bead of sweat jumping his eyebrow and nestling down into his eye. It stung and gave the sun a glare, but he stayed perfectly still.

“Can we start with our names?” the northerner asked, his voice low and pleading. “Just a name. You can call me Dale, and this is Rick. What can we call you?”

He was met with more silence.

He kept pushing. “We came out here looking for survivors. How did you get out here? Were you on the road last night when… when this all happened?”

Finally, the man with the shotgun ground out, “Jim.”

“Jim. Okay, Jim.” Dale stepped a little closer, bold, because now Daryl could see both of his hands and know that he was unarmed. “What happened here?”

“He was stealing from me.”

Daryl might have done better if he kept his mouth shut, but he just couldn’t. “I ain’t steal shit.”

“You were about to. I saw you.”

“Jim, hey, can you lower that gun please?” Rick, the other one, the southerner, said. “We just want to talk to you. But you havin’ that gun on him makes us all real nervous.” He waited, and then added, “Is this really worth killing someone over? Do you really want to hurt him?”

It took a long, long second for any response to come. Daryl did not breathe. He waited, wondering if these were the questions this guy should be asking, wondering if Merle could do something before he got his face blown off. But he only had that one second to wonder, because Jim finally lowered his gun and released a shuddering gasp.

Merle lurched forward the moment the shotgun was down and grabbed Daryl, dragging him out to stand beside him – it was three groups then, the new arrivals, the bearded man, and the brothers.

He got a look at the two men at last, putting voices to faces immediately. Rick was the tall one, proud, dressed down in a brown police uniform with a handgun on his side and a wide-brimmed hat shading his face. His companion was shorter, older, with a white beard and beady, surprised eyes. Jim was scrawny, his beard bigger than his face, and those wild eyes darted around.

“I think you all should come back with us,” Rick said. “We have a small group going, and we can keep each other safe.” He was looking at Jim. “Do you have a family out here?”

Jim looked to the car and shook his head once, finally dropping those eyes.

“What about you two?” Rick asked of them.

Daryl said nothing. Merle grinned, “Just got each other, boss.”

“We’re trying to find a safe place to stay until help comes,” Dale said. “We’re heading to a quarry up the road, as soon as we get my RV started.”

“You got kids there?” Jim asked.

Rick looked at him strangely.

Jim clarified, “I have sleeping bags in the car, kid-sized, some of them.”

“You almost shot me over that shit,” Daryl objected. “Now you’re just givin’ it away?”

Jim glared at him.

Merle grabbed Daryl hard on the shoulder, chuckling, “Whoa, what my brother is tryin’ to say is we would be happy to join your group.” He was trying to be genuine, but Daryl knew when he was full of shit. “You can call me Merle, and this here’s my baby brother Daryl. He ain’t so good with the social stuff, barely talks, practically mute, poor kid. Doctors called him a simpleton, but I find that shit offensive.” He pulled a line of squirrels from his backpack, holding them up, “Here, call this our membership fee. Me and Daryl here are hunters, born and bred.”

Daryl stared at him. He always said they were better off alone. What was he playing at now?

“Nice to meet you,” Rick said shortly. “Do any of you have mechanical experience?”

Jim nodded, and Merle said, “I can give it a whack.”

Both of them joined the sheriff in the lead, and Dale trailed them. Daryl found himself at the back, keeping an eye out behind them, sometimes stopping to pick something up or peek into a car window. He kept a close watch on the group, ready to step in and help if Merle suddenly decided to rob them. He had seen him play the nice guy a few times before, and it always ended that way.

Rick led them down the road and across the divider, to an old-fashioned RV parked precariously across two lanes. A man worked under the hood, kind of fat, with a snarling mouth and a bulldog face, just the type to buddy up with his brother. Merle joined him, and Daryl stepped into the vehicle, taking one look around and scowling. It was as ugly as sin, and it smelled worse.

He sat at the tiny table, in a booth too small for him, and laid his crossbow out. It was hot out, and hotter inside, but he sat there picking bits of pine straw out of his bow while they tried to get it running. He was sweating bullets, but it was worth it to get out of the sun for a while.

Dale came inside and mulled around, opening cabinets, muttering to himself, and then pausing near him and waiting for something.

Daryl looked up, met his eyes, and then looked away.

“You’re welcome, for saving you out there,” Dale said, as humble as someone could be when they were begging for gratitude.

Daryl snorted, looking out the window.

“So, you two have been traveling in the woods? I guess you have a knack for survival. What direction did you come from? Up north?”

He kept on with the questions, so Daryl had to leave the RV to get away from him. He stood in the shade, arms crossed, and listened to Merle shoot shit with the bulldog-faced man, Ed, until the RV roared to life. It seemed someone had stolen a spark plug.

Everyone loaded up, and Daryl lingered, grabbing Merle before he could get in.

“What are you playin’ at?” he demanded.

Merle smiled, “Whatever do you mean, bro?”

“What’re you doing with these people? Why’d you give ‘em our squirrels?”

“You just wait and see, boy. You just wait and see.”

Daryl followed him in, sitting near the back with Merle and staring out the window. He was hungry and tired, sore from sleeping in that tree, but he never let his guard down. He sat awake and alert, moving toward the front when the quarry came into view.

He knew it the moment he saw it.

It was layers of rock, eaten down to form roads to the bottom. Some big company had come in and scooped out whatever valuable stone had been here and left a giant crater in the earth. It filled with water, leaving a small pebble beach at the bottom.

He had seen a lot of pretty things in the woods, but that lake glistening in the midday sun, as quiet and pristine as anything, took his breath away.

“Here, we can park up here,” Rick said, pointing out a clearing above the lip of the quarry. It was near the widest road that went down to the shore, and it had a good view of their surroundings. Dale parked the RV and cut it off, and they all sat there, unmoving, for a moment.

“We must be, what, two miles from the others, through the woods?” Dale wondered.

Rick nodded. “We need to split up. Jim, you come with me and we’ll go get the others. You all scout the area, make sure it’s safe.”

“How many more people you got coming out here?” Merle asked innocently.

Rick hesitated before he answered, “Ten, give or take.”

Ed spoke up, “Hey, Carol and the kid alright?”

Dale looked back, incredulous, “Are you only asking that now?” He looked at Rick, unbelieving. “Is he only asking that now?”

“They’re fine,” Rick responded shortly.

He left the RV, and they all gathered outside. Daryl squinted across the quarry, appreciating a wide-open space after days in the forest. He liked the wind, the fresh smell of the wild world. It was better than going to the city, better than staying home.

“Everybody clear on how to deal with walkers?” Rick asked.

Merle smiled, “Go for the head, make ‘em real dead.”

He left, half-jogging away down the road, with Jim right behind him. Daryl began to wander, holding his crossbow ready in his arms. He stepped up to the edge of the crater and looked down, whistling at the drop.

“You thinkin’ of jumpin’?” Merle asked, joining him.

“Thinkin’ of throwing your ass off,” Daryl muttered.

“Sorry for the simpleton comment. I got a little carried away. Better they think we’re some kind of stupid. You gotta keep your cards to yourself.”

Daryl wanted to know what his game was, but Merle was hard to read. He always looked like he was joking, and when he didn’t, he was royally pissed off. There was no in-between with him. It had been that way since he could remember – hot and cold, no exceptions.

“Well, you heard the man,” Merle said, turning suddenly and addressing everyone. “Let’s fan out and see if there are any dead guys walking around. Anybody wanna borrow a machete?”


End file.
